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of one the earliest US hackerspaces, the l0pht, before we knew what the wor=
d was. This was when the words Open Source didn&#39;t exist and all we knew=
of was the=A0League=A0of Programming Freedom, which would later become the=
Free Software Foundation, thanks to RMS.</div>
<div><br></div><div>It was when reverse engineering electronics wasn&#39;t =
much of a crime and most of the laws regarding &quot;Cybersecurity&quot; di=
dn&#39;t exist yet.=A0We started off because our girlfriends and wives (yes=
, some of us were that old) hated having all that technology littering our =
apartments and we all wanted some place to work.=A0</div>
<div><br></div><div>Women in our organization like Limor Fried (ladyada) an=
d Window Snyder forged new ground for women in technology and rallied again=
st male-driven engineering fields to create new=A0opportunities=A0to teach =
others engineering and security, for both men and women (and girls and boys=
.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>If not for our ability to come together and share what =
we knew, none of us would have had Internet access or the chance to learn a=
nd work on Unix, which back then was extremely difficult to do (we had to c=
obble together Sun Sparcstations and Vax machines from junk). Even Slackwar=
e was in it&#39;s mere nascent phase of development and Linux was very, ver=
y unstable. These experiences, building these machines, built careers for p=
eople.=A0</div>
<div><br></div><div>What we did back then was more than likely illegal, and=
we had to work together to get access to technology. Our small group of pe=
ople went on to do great things, from speaking in front of congress, to bre=
aking RSA&#39;s SecurID, and forming great companies like @stake and VeraCo=
de. All because we worked together on shared interests.=A0</div>
<div><br></div><div>What I do have to say is that the actions of some of th=
e people on this list saddens me, and I am just responding to what I see he=
re on the list. It keeps me from becoming an active member of Noisebridge. =
It keeps me from getting on my bicycle, riding to the mission and sharing w=
hat I know (and learning new things from) all of you because my perception =
of the actions of a few make it sound like a wonderful hackerspace has beco=
me overrun with drama and madness.=A0</div>
<div><br></div><div>It keeps me from donating money and certainly keeps me =
from helping out. You&#39;ve got a permissive society here, perhaps too per=
missive to permit great things to happen.=A0</div><div><br></div><div>Cut i=
t out. Convince me I&#39;m wrong. I think all of you are smart enough to wo=
rk through this and to realize the value in the resource that you have work=
ed so hard to create and the insanity in allowing this to continue along th=
e path you&#39;ve chosen.</div>
<span><font color=3D"#888888">
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>--john</div><div><br></div><div><br></di=
v>
</font></span><br></div></div><div>________________________________________=
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e-discuss</a><br>
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